Never Forget Shanghai…

I had great plans for my layover in shanghai, its China who wouldn’t be excited!! My flight over was a breeze, we done our service and customers where happy – by happy i mean sleeping.

We landed around 4pm local time so myself and 2 other girls decided to go out for dinner. We wanted to experience a real Chinese restaurant, if anyone has been to China you will understand. The Chinese food back home is a lie!! There was no chicken curry with egg fried rice or sweetcorn soup it was all shark-fin soup and goose feet. As you can imagine 3 English girls we was totally out of our depth so we decided to play it safe and head to ‘La Tapas’, not the best experience either but we got our food and headed back to the hotel to rest.

It was about 3am local time and i woke up in such bad pain coming from my left ear – yes, I was crying like a baby – I called our SOS system and they advised me no one was available until working hours an to go back to sleep until they call at 9am… that was 6 hours away, a long night was ahead of me! Morning came i headed to the clinic where he said i had a ‘ear infection’ and was unable to fly home that night, he sent me on my way back the hotel with a bag full of medication. When ever i take medication it knocks me out, so for the rest of that and and next i sleep. After being in Shanghai for 48hours I finally got told i could fly home since my ear started popping, I wasn’t going to work the flight i was ‘deadheading’ – basically means i fly back to Dubai not working.

It was a A380 aircraft and little me got a seat in Business Class! Oh yes! I got the full effect of how our customers fly and how they experience our inflight service, the flight was overnight so I got to recline or should say ‘make a bed’ on my chair and sleep. Even though I had some horrid pain in my ear it was wonderful.

So its a few days later now, its the 2nd December and I’m still signed off work, when I got back to Dubai I went to our clinic and they advised me it was not a infection but a build up of pressure in my nasal tubes and the pain was caused by the pressure pushing on my ear drum, they said i was lucky. If you fly with this the pressure will eventually cause your ear drum to pop… bye bye hearing! Im still on medication and have a few days off still before my next flight, fingers crossed ill be ok because I’m heading to…. Mauritius!!

One thought on “Never Forget Shanghai…”

Aw you poor thing, I hope your ear feels better soon!
I panic even if my ear hurts for an hour after I’ve taken a flight haha.
I flew Emirates on the way home from Singapore to NZ and I love how the cabin has those stars on the ceiling! It’s so cute. I had to take a picture as well.
Lucky you got to sit in business class, I’m always jealous when I walk through business get to my normal seat at the back if the plane haha.